Gotta love customer "service"

So I had a great weekend up at the LAN but unfortunately came home to the following problem;

I had a problem a couple of weeks ago with a Directv Tivo unit (HR10-250) in my basement that had the #2 dtv tuner go out on it. It was only 9 mo. old (approx) but, whatever, things go bad sometimes. I called cs and they promptly sent out a new receiver and a return tag for the old box.

The new receiver showed up last Monday, I installed it (using all the same cables and cords) and presto everything is back to normal. The unit worked perfectly for 3 days, then I go on my 4 day weekend 2o2p vacation. When I get back Sunday night I see that I had no picture or sound on either satellite tuners and the ota tuner would only play for a sec then freeze then play a sec. then freeze ect. ect. If I went to a recording from 2 days earlier it played fine, though I got a nag message every few seconds about "insert a valid access card" (or similar). If I went to a satellite station and hit the channel banner it did show what is playing on that channel just no a/v. If I hit the guide, it would pull it up for a second, then go back to "live" TV. I did a system test and everything passed. I rebooted, same problems. I checked signal strength and all transponders looked good. All (4) of my other receivers are working perfectly. I even swapped the receiver with one in another location in the house and found that the second receiver works fine in the basement (where my HR10 is normally) but the HR10 still had problems in the other location.

So, I called cs. I explained the situation and her response was to send out a tech for $70! WHAT! My dish is fine, the cables are fine, it's a bad machine! I was (imo justifiably) livid. I have been with Dtv since nearly day 1. I was one of the first to get a new DTivo unit when they became available (in fact that Sony unit still works perfectly this many years later) and I paid over $700 for my HR10-250 when I finally got my new HDTV. I not so politely told her that she can send a tech if she wants but I'm not paying one red cent for her to do it. She had no intention of backing off that charge so I informed her that I would be looking into my local cable companies offerings and the decide whether or not I would pursue this any further.  She seemed pretty much indifferent so I simply hung up on her before before I popped a blood vessle.  Needless to say, while I'd hope to get online that night to play some Halo or something and share the weekends experiences with my fellow clanmates I was no longer in the mood.

I waited 3 full days before I attempted to call Directv's customer service back.  I needed all 3 days to fully come down off of my customer service rage.  After speaking to a new agent for a couple of minutes, he was able to come to the same conclusion that I already had 3 days earlier.  My new receiver should arrive sometime today or tomorrow.  It should have been so simple.  Why do they have to make it so hard?

Sorry for the boring post.  I just needed to vent.